by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua

Mission

Since the advent of the digital revolution the meetings and events industry has been drowning in a sea of content. Most of this content is ephemeral, disappearing without a trace as temperatures change. Some, however, endures, like the salt that remains when heat causes the water to evaporate. Greg Oates’ thoughtful piece on Skift earlier this month, “The Manifesto for a New Generation of Meetings and Conventions” is such an example.

Amidst an infestation of articles, blogs and newsfeeds on new hotel openings, millennials in the workplace and how it’s now a seller’s market, Oates’ article has the effect of a stern, sombre but highly respected school principal suddenly appearing in a classroom of noisy, unruly adolescents. The place goes quiet and the more diligent students think “shit, we’ve let ourselves down badly”. This is because Oates draws our attention, as a collective industry, to the lack of strategic mission at the heart of what we do. Hotels are re-positioning themselves as neighbourhood hang-outs. Travel agents have become experts in connecting travellers with authentic experiences. Even OTAs have a strategic mission: make the on-line customer journey as easy as possible. But what’s the cohesive vision or strategic mission for the meetings industry?

Once again, as an industry, we’re hamstrung by the lack of an agreed term around which we all willingly convene. Greg uses terms like “meetings and conventions sector”, “meetings industry”,  “events industry”,  “business events” and “large meetings and conventions” pretty much interchangeably throughout his article. He doesn’t mention “incentives” at all but I don’t think that’s because he’s excluding that sector from his analysis. In any case his model  fits the incentive sector too.

So what’s strategic mission is he suggesting for the MICE sector? How should MICE stakeholders be envisioning the future and moving towards its own brave new world of new possibilities? Oates proposes a 3 point framework of community, collaboration and content

Community / The Network Effect

The rise of public-private partnerships are helping stakeholders share data and resources to expand the destination’s inventory of potential convention participants, sponsors, exhibitors and experiences.

In the past tourism organisations, economic development agencies, academic institutions, and diplomatic entities all focused on building a positive reputation for a country, region or city with the core objective of attracting people there to live, set up business, work, study or visit. Mainly these agencies acted independently of each other, all investing heavily, albeit in different ways, to achieve the same outcome. We’re now entering an era of better joined-up thinking. In smart, progressive destinations, some or all of these entities are now talking to each other, sharing data and resources and avoiding unnecessary duplication.

In Ireland the Destination Dublin initiative was a classic public / private partnership involving a spectrum of stakeholders much broader than the usual tourism suspects. One output of this initiative is “Dublin: a breath of fresh air”, a new brand for Dublin that highlights the city’s uniqueness as a compact, vibrant city with an exciting hinterland of mountains and sea perfect for all manner of outdoor activity. Initially tailored for the leisure markets, a MICE application of the brand is currently being finalised.

Collaboration / The Value Proposition

The big shift here is about packaging and promoting destinations above and beyond their meetings infrastructure, and expanding on that to deliver local knowledge and creative industry expertise, academic research, and business sector intelligence to drive added value for everyone.

At some recent point in time smart destinations realised that winning major conventions wasn’t so much about the size of your convention centre or, indeed, a whether you had a stunning picture of a castle on the homepage of your website. In a recent address to the MICE community in Prague, gastroenterologist and prominent conference ambassador, Prof Julius Špičák, made it very clear that it starts with the science, ie, the conference content, then the infrastructure – particularly access – and finally human factors – is the destination sufficiently front and centre in Conde Naste magazine as to grab the attention of the Chairman’s wife!

In our work with Prague’s neighbouring city, Bratislava, we’ve been building the destination’s value proposition around accessibility, innovation and execution, highlighting the city as a knowledge hub, a hive of startups, a centre in Europe for excellence in precision engineering. There’s a beautiful castle in Bratislava but what makes it truly unique for MICE is its pioneering robotic technology at its car manufacturing plants or as the location where the world’s first flying car is being developed.

Content / Digital Engagement:

The rise of mobile and digital brand storytelling is exploding today to help destinations, venues and planners more clearly define their value proposition and their events’ messaging on an ongoing basis for larger global audiences.

The new framework for MICE starts by identifying the destination stakeholders who share a need to create demand for the destination. It then weaves the destination’s value proposition from narrative strands that include both the hardware and the software of the destination, extending way beyond the bricks and mortar of convention centres and hospitality options. Finally it utilises the power and convenience of mobile and digital platforms to share these narratives as widely as possible.

On the leisure side destinations have created some excellent on-line campaigns, building significant profile and awareness using social media and user-generated content. On the business tourism side the use of on-line has been somewhat slower and generally limited to a smaller number of truly creative DMOs. The Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions is a clear outlier in relation to innovative digital content with its integrated, both on and off-line Mr Holland campaign.

Slovenia, too, has been developing some excellent digital resources and received great traction with its a campaign, #IFeel25, launched at IMEX16 in Frankfurt to celebrate its 25 years of sovereign nationhood. Using a digital quiz platform developed by Sam J.Smith’s company Interactive Meeting Technology, visitors to the Slovenia booth contested the coveted MICE Mastermind award by answering 25 questions on Slovenia and the Meetings Industry. Currently on-line at Slovenia Convention Bureau the campaign continues with fortnightly stories on the same theme.

Pádraic Gilligan, Patrick Delaney and Aoife McCrum run SoolNua, a specialist agency working with destinations, hotels and venues on strategy, marketing and training for the MICE market